Replacement
by sardonicwriter
Summary: What events surrounded the retirement of Pomona Sprout? Who will her replacement be? Please read and review!


AN: Although this isn't my "first" Fanfiction, (I have co-authored one with ReadingLuver called "The Order Reads") This is the first one I have published under my own name. Please read and Review and tell me what you think. This is only the first chapter and if I get enough positive reviews I'll continue.

Sardonic Writer

Disclaimer: this is all J.K. Rowling's.

Replacement

Fifteen years after the fall of Voldemort, and still the grounds of Hogwarts looked the same as it had the night Hagrid walked out of the Forbidden Forest carrying a limp Harry in his arms. The sloping grounds glistened in the early morning dew as Pomona Sprout, longtime head of Hufflepuff house, walked down to her Green Houses. The sun had barley started to rise, and the students were probably all still lying in their beds. The chill of winter had just started to end, and spring was already showing itself in the green buds on the Whomping Willow.

Professor Sprout was feeling better than she had in months. Whenever the winter storms separated her from her greenhouses, Pomona Sprout was not a woman you wanted to cross; but now, as the warm sunshine fell on her dirt encrusted tattered witch's hat, she was content as she could be. She hummed one of the latest tunes from the Weird Sisters as she fumbled in her pockets for the keys to Greenhouse 3. Most of her students thought her a bit odd for using keys but, as all who had tried to sneak in to the greenhouses had found out, there was a spell on the lock which prevented the use of Alohomora and similar spells.

She pushed into the Greenhouse three and took a deep breath of the musky air. She set about preparing mandrakes for her second year students. Professor Sprout was growing on in years and lately, though she loved Hogwarts, she had started to think about retirement. Many of her old colleagues had followed that route. Madam Hooch had left the very year Voldemort (She shuddered at the thought of the name) had died. Professor McGonagall had left her position as Transfiguration teacher to become the Headmistress of Hogwarts, (and had recently retired from that position as well) and even her replacement at transfiguration was retiring at the end of the year. Only a few of her colleagues: Professor Slughorn, and Sylabyll Trelawney, had stayed.

She bent down to pick up a few mandrake pots, marveling at how big they'd gotten. As she was bustling around the table, she was tripped up by a root and fell tumbling to the ground. Since she had not expected to be moving the mandrakes, she had neglected to put on her shabby pink earmuffs. The baby mandrakes scream was not enough to kill her, thank goodness, but it was enough to knock her out.

Unfortunately for Professor Sprout, the mandrakes were not the only things in Greenhouse number three. The Venomous Tarantacula, who had quite a playful side, believed that Professor Sprout was playing a new game with it, and quickly wrapped its long leafy tentacles around her. Three hours later when the third year Hufflepuff and Gryffindor class came to Greenhouse three and found it unlocked, a few of the braver ones (mostly from Gryffindor of course) entered and found Professor Sprout still unconscious, and wrapped in the Tarantacula's vines suspended four feet above the ground. Matters were quickly restored to normal, once several teachers had been called down from the school. Professor Sprout, though physically fine, was much shook up by the event, and not five minutes after the ever meticulous Nurse Pomfrey had given her a final looking over, she was in Headmaster Flitwick's office demanding her retirement.

"Look Flitwick, I was one of the first teacher's Dumbledore hired way back right after Dippet retired, it's been long enough!" Professor Sprout argued. "I want to spend my last few years at home, enjoying _my_ gardens!"

"But Pomona!" cried Flitwick, "It's the middle of the year! Where am I going to find someone to replace you?"

"I know, and I'm sorry," said Professor Sprout dejectedly, "but I just can't do it anymore. It's been so hard these past fifteen years, watching all the old teachers leave. First Madam Hooch, then McGonagall and Dumbledore's prescence still haunts this place… there's no one left. Its just you and me Flitwick, all thats left of the old crowd. I just… I can't stand it anymore. It's time to let some new blood in. I'm sorry."

"I understand Pomona," said Flitwick "I'll…" he sighed, "I'll miss you. Take care of yourself."

"Thank you for understanding Filius," Professor Sprout said. "I'll go tell my house before I leave." She turned to leave, picking up her patched and frayed hat. Before she walked down the stairwell she turned for one last look at the office, of the pictures on the walls, pausing the longest at Dumbledore's, before adding to Flitwick "if you need help considering any candidates feel free to send me an owl."

She walked out of the Headmaster's office for the last time. Flitwick sat down to begin the odious chore of finding a replacement.


End file.
